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Friday, September 04, 2015

Fiona Friday - A tale of two kitties

Anyone who follows me on Twitter or Facebook and has read this week's posts will already know this story, but I figure it's worth sharing. This has been a harrowing week for cat mommying. I had a birthday and Huzzybuns surprised me with flowers and chocolate:

This is a big, fat, hairy deal. I was 17 when I met my husband and now we're grandparents. In the many years we've been together, he's maybe bought me flowers 3 times. I let the cats sniff the flowers under supervision (Izzy's actually sniffing one of the whimsical butterflies added to the arrangement, in this photo):

They didn't seem all that interested after a thorough inspection; and, I wanted to keep the flowers in a prominent place where I could admire them. So, I left them on the dining room table. Big mistake. The next morning, I started up my computer, walked away, and found Isabel in the process of eating some of the flowers.

Fiona continued to ignore them, thank goodness.

I hurriedly swept the flowers away, looked up the florist Huz used, located a photo of the arrangement (which included the names of the flowers), identified the blooms I'd caught her eating, and checked to see if they're dangerous for cats to ingest. She had been munching on larkspur. Sure enough, larkspur is toxic to cats. I called my veterinarian's office and they said, "Bring her in."

The vet swept her away after telling me what he planned to do and said she would need to spend the night. It was a long, long night and an equally long day. He wanted to keep her a full 24 hours to make sure she had the toxin out of her system before leaving. Not long after she threw up the flowers, the vet later told me, she began salivating -- an early symptom of the toxic effects. However, she improved quickly and never did show any neurological symptoms, thank goodness. She was every bit as happy to be home as we were to have her back. Fiona gave her two sweet eskimo kisses. This photo was taken just before Kiss #2:

And, here you can see that Isabel was pretty perky after she arrived home. This was taken an hour or two after our return from the vet:

I've never been so happy to wake up with both cats nearby as I was this morning. Izzy seriously turned on the charm.

Meanwhile, Fiona (whose favorite box recently was replaced with an equally small but stronger version . . . she will not be mailed, priority or otherwise) admitted to enjoying a night as Only Cat but was perfectly content to have her sister back in the house.

And, the flowers are now safely out of reach. Any future flower gifts will go directly to the mantel.

6 comments:

I'm so happy that Izzy is in good health now! I followed your kitty's drama on Facebook but didn't comment at the time because I was dealing with my own sick cat, Tiger, and was kind of emotional about it because I didn't know what was wrong with him. He lost a lot of weight over the course of a couple of weeks and we had to test for a lot of scary stuff like kitty leukemia. His tests all came back perfect, so they treated him for parasites just in case, and now we just watch and see if he gains weight. It was so stressful knowing that he was sick and not knowing what was wrong. The sides of his tummy were/are sunken in and his ribs poking out. I'm less stressed now, but still keeping a close eye on him.

I'm sorry you've been worrying about Tiger! I hope it's something that's easily cleared up. There was a time our Miss Spooky lost weight and I didn't notice. It was a slow weight loss and one of my children had to draw my attention to the fact that she wasn't looking well (he'd been away for a while and the difference was dramatic to him). It turned out she had an e-coli infection in a wound, probably from the other kitty jumping on her with dirty claws. Miss Spooky was on antibiotics for *months* but recovered fully. Hope the treatment for parasites is the simple solution you're hoping for. Clearly, we both understand how miserable it is to have a sick fur friend. Ear rubs to Tiger and hopes for a speedy recovery!

So scary! I did see this one Facebook. I'm so glad Izzy is OK. I just recently found out that day lillies are toxic to cats. My cat loves to play in the ones in my garden. Thankfully she's never eaten them and now I watch her very closely.

Ooooh, I didn't know about day lilies! Our first two were indoor-outdoor kitties (till one decided the outdoors wasn't for her). I was constantly having to talk Miss Spooky down out of trees because of the neighborhood dogs and she was once attacked by a pack of dogs, so we decided our next kitties would stay indoors. Clearly, there are still plenty of hazards! I'm glad your furbabies have just played in the day lilies rather than munching on them!!!

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